Daily Digest: Rihanna, Justin Bieber, PSY, Lalah Hathaway
Rihanna’s 777 tour feels more like 666…
Justin Bieber is too sexy for his shirt…
PSY and Hammer join forces…
Lalah Hathaway blasts gospel karaoke…
These are just some of the headlines on Nov. 29
Rihanna’s Tour Hits Speedbumps, Lands No. 1 Album
Unapologetic, Rihanna‘s seventh disc, takes the number one spot on theBillboard 200, becoming the first number one album for the Barbados-born singer. It is being reported that the album has sold 238,000 copies in its first week, which represents her highest number of albums sold on debut week. It replaced last week’s number one, One Direction’s Take Me Home, which dropped to number 3.
Leading up to the album’s drop, Rihanna traveled extensively with her expensive 777 tour. The event allowed her to tour seven countries in a record-breaking seven days with a full fleet of press and fans. Lots of complaints from disgruntled press invaded many of their updated posts on their respected blog and Twitter accounts. Besides complaining about their lack of access to the pop star, plenty stressed of over crowdedness, sleep deprivation, quality of food and being homesick. The tour itself was a minor success, marred with technical difficulties and sound problems.
“The 777 tour was a risk; an experience bound to be exceptional or awful,” says Erika Ramirez of Billboard. “On one hand, friendships were made through madness and we now know not to doubt our stamina. On the other hand, we unfortunately didn’t get to know more about Rihanna than what we did before embarking on the tour. Either way, we survived the 777 tour, but nobody on that plane is planning to talk about this over Thanksgiving dinner.”
Rihanna responded to the wave of criticism when she spoke with BBC’s Radio 1 after the tour concluded. “It was different having to do your job but also have 200 guests come along with you,” she says. “They all want you to host a party every time you get on the plane after a show but you really only have that time to sleep until you get to the next country…I knew I had seven countries and seven shows and I had to save my voice. I didn’t go crazy. I didn’t party too hard.”
In case you missed it, Australian press guy and veejay Tim Dormer decided to become the human icebreaker on RiRi’s aircraft when he streaked the press down the aisles, showing off his tanned buns and his best “Rude Boy” impression. The moment provided loads of laughter and relief, stalling the folks onboard from erupting into complete chaos.
See the video below.
Justin Bieber’s Too Sexy for His Shirt
Justin Bieber snapped a photo of his gym bod on Twitter.
Now that Justin Bieber is an official bachelor after dropping his girlfriend Selena Gomez and his now walking into the first rounds of pre-adulthood, he is now showing off his gym bod on Twitter. “Back in the gym,” Bieber tweeted last Friday, showing off his slightly cut torso, boxer briefs and body tats. He later wrote, “good workout. #focused.”
Re-Up Gets the Lo-Down
Nicki Minaj is adding a 2012 update to her Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded, but the boost in record sales will have to wait on such an upgrade. That’s because it appears that major superstores like Wal-Mart and Target will not be carrying the upgraded disc, sighting the unimpressive record sales of her last disc. “It’s hard to get the album because the stores basically said that the last few re-releases they had put out did not do well and they don’t want to take the chance,” Minaj told Power 105.1. “So, Target and Walmart [are] not selling the album. Target is actually my biggest retailer … they’ve sold the most Nicki Minaj albums ever, so thank you, Target. But I wish you could’ve sold this one.”
Best Buy only purchased a small quantity of the repackaged re-issue, stating that they wanted to “play it safe.” The new disc features an additional eight-song EP and accompanying DVD.
PSY Goes Hammer Style
K-pop sensation PSY left the 40th American Music Awards with one of the most talked about performances of the evening. Like his popular “Gangnam Style” pop hit, his “bust-a-move” performance with rap legend MC Hammer went viral overnight. If anything, the whole performance got the rap world taking about Hammer again, while also acknowledging PSY undeniable reach on American pop culture – even if all the popdom isn’t expected to last very long.
Judging from the clip, Black Eyed Peas’ frontman will.i.am. obviously thinks PSY has a lot more time on his clock.
See the video below.
Pink’s contemporary dance on her highly visual and artsy performance of “Try” may have been the night’s major breakthrough. Despite the imagery of domestic abuse akin to Eminem and Rihanna’s concept video of “Love the Way You Lie,” her flexible footwork was good enough to get on So You Think You Can Dance. See the video below.
Everything Ain’t Everything
Gospel singer Earnest Pugh and r&b/jazz singer Lalah Hathaway embroiled in Twitter beef war
Neo-jazz singer Lalah Hathaway – daughter to the late r&b singer Donny Hathaway – has been trying to clear her name from a bit of bad label mispractice when gospel label CEO Kerry Douglas took a song that she originally appeared on with Zacardi Cortez and added a newly recorded vocal track from Earnest Pugh to it. A giddy Pugh took to Twitter to express excitement over the copy-and-paste session, saying “just finished recording a duet with @Lalahhathaway #amazing experience.”
Hathaway, who was never told about the behind-the-scenes session, tweeted, “@earnestpugh no idea what you’re speaking of.” Fan on both sides of the aisle beefed up the conversation, with Pugh’s folk posting prayers and Hathaway’s fans calling the event a nightmare. She even posted that the track was nothing more than “karaoke.” In typical holier-than-thou style, Pugh posted, “Lord forgive them for they know not what they do.”
Douglas’s PR team is advocating that they are in the right, citing that record labels do these type of re-invent tricks all the time. In a press statement released this week, Douglas said that he “didn’t inform Lalah’s management of my plans for the song so they were caught off guard and I apologize for that but I don’t apologize for the song because it’s going to be a huge hit for Earnest Pugh and Lalah Hathaway.”
One thing’s for sure, don’t expect these two to work together in the future.
DAILY DIGEST is a roundup recap of current events and headlines that involves the music industry. Although HiFi Magazine reports news throughout the week, the stories compiled for the Daily Digest column are usually deemed as being events “bubbling under the radar.”
